Step-down booklet

ABSTRACT

A method for making a computer personalized step-down booklet from a continuous pre-printed web which is assembled and finished in one operation.

United States Patent [191 Lyon, Jr.

[451 Sept. 23, 1975 STEP-DOWN BOOKLET [75] Inventor: Randolph S. Lyon, Jr., Westport,

Conn.

[73] Assignee: Kurt H. Volk, Inc., Milford, Conn.

[22] Filed: Jan. 25, 1972 [21] Appl. No.: 220,110

[52] US. Cl. 270/37 [51] Int. Cl. B41L 43/12 [58] Field of Search 270/32, 37, 20, 21, 62,

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,604,984 7/1952 Apgar 270/39 3,70l,522 l0/l972 Chi ..270/39 Primary ExaminerRobert W. Michell Assistant Examiner-V. Millin Attorney, Agent, or Firm McLean, Boustead & Sayre [57] ABSTRACT A method for making a computer personalized stepdown booklet from a continuous pre-printed web which is assembled and finished in one operation.

3 Claims, 4 Drawing Figures US Patent Sept. 23,1975 I ERSON ALI ZED .llllal llll ll! STEP-DOWN BOOKLET BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to a method of producing a step-down booklet from a continuous pre-printed web which is especially suited for use with computerized operations such as those involving computer personalized web lithographic printed forms. In particular, the invention relates to a step-down booklet comprising interior pages of varying width which remains an integral structure throughout all the operations up to and including the final finishing step.

2. Description of the Prior Art In recent years computer directed printers have been utilized in connection with large volume mailings related to advertising or solicitation campaigns. In particular, the information contained in the computers data input system which contains the normal addressee mailing information for printing the envelope has also been used in various forms to personalize, the preprinted advertising materials being transmitted. In its simplest and most common form this personalization might constitute the inclusion of the addressees name in a salutation line in what otherwise would be recognized as a form letter. The intended effect of such personalized advertising messages is of course to capture and maintain the attention of the addressee for the purpose of having him read all the information transmitted. These personalization techniques have resulted in increased returns to the advertiser thereby enhancing their value as a selling or solicitation medium.

In addition, the computer directed print-out devices have been used in conjunction with continuous high speed web lithographic printing equipment to produce advertising materials that include not only personalized Salutations but also the repetition of the addressees name and other related personal information in various locations throughout the advertising material. Up to the present the formats for such personalized massproduced mail advertising materials have been limited by economic considerations to letters or simple brochures. I

Another useful format for advertising materials is the step-down book or booklet which generally consists of a front and rear cover of uniform size containing a number of internal pages that are smaller than, or equal in size to the pages which follow. The internal pages are usually the same size as the cover pages as measured from head to foot, but increase in width, as measured from backbone to right-hand edge, so that the righthand margins of successive pages are visible adjacent to the narrowest internal page. These visible marginal strips are readily adaptable to color coding or indexing and the booklet as a whole offers an unusual and eyeappealling format for the presentation of information.

In the present state of the art the step-down booklets have been assembled from pre-printed sheets, each sheet containing four pages. The individual sheets comprising the internal pages of the booklet have to be trimmed down prior to assembly .to a narrower width than the cover sheet depending upon their relative position in the finished booklet. In addition, the centerfold line, or backbone of the finished booklet does not coincide with the geometric centerline of the narrower internal sheets so that an indexing procedure must be provided in collating and aligning the sheets in a superposed configuration preceeding the binding operation. This complicated assembly procedure has inhibited the application of the techniques of computer directed personalization to step-down booklets because of the potentially greater expense involved in re-running spoiled booklets. If the pages of more than one sheet are personalized a continuous sampling must be undertaken to insure that no booklet pages have been mismatched during the assembly, or to determine at what point in the run misassembly occurred. Any personalization of such booklets assembled by these prior art methods has been generally limited to a single sheet in order to avoid the potential losses of materials and computer time associated with incomplete or improperly assembled booklets.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Thus, an object of my invention is to provide a method of producing a step-down booklet which obviates the necessity of manually handling sheets of varying sizes which comprise the pages of the booklets during the final assembly of the booklets.

A further object is to provide a method of producing a step-down booklet in which a plurality of pages of varying width can be finished in one operation.

Another object of my invention is to provide a method of assembling a step-down booklet which contains a plurality of pages that are personalized and that avoids any possibility of mismatching or mixing of personalized pages.

A particular object of my invention is to provide a method of producing a personalized step-down booklet which is readily adaptable for use with computer directed printers in conjunction with continuous high speed web lithographic printing equipment.

My inventionprovides a step-down booklet which may be prepared from a continuous web of pre-printed material and personalized on at least one quarter of the total number of pages in the finished booklet. Most importantly, the section of the web comprising the booklet remains in integral form until after the booklet is bound together, thereby precluding any possibility that there will occur a mismatching of personalized pages in one booklet. The pre-printed web is divided into sheets by perforations along transverse longitudinal lines, perpendicular to the backbone of the booklet, which correspond to the lines between the head and foot of adjacent sheets. The sheets are then die-cut along their marginal edges parallel to the longitudinal edges of the web and the booklet backbone between the perforated lines, and the marginal strips are burst or removed from the'external edges of the sheets comprising the web. The sheets are then folded in an appropriate manner along the perforated lines into an overlying and superposed configuration in which the pages that constitute the finished booklet are in proper sequence. The perforated lines serve the dual purpose of facilitating the separation of the web sections comprising the sheets of each booklet and the subsequent folding of the sheets.

The overlying sheets are bound by appropriate means and folded along the backbone. The head and foot of the booklet, where adjacent sheets remain joined along the perforated lines, are slit or trimmed off to produce the finished'booklet.

My method avoids the problem attendant the production of step-down booklets which are assembled from individual sheets by maintaining the sheets as an integral part of a continuous web until the sheets have been bound together in the overlying configuration and in a manner in which there is no opportunity for an omission or misplacement of any of the pages or sheets comprising the booklet. Furthermore, my method is particularly suited for use with a computer directed printing system which is able to personalize a number of pages prior to their separation from the web since it avoids completely the possibility of a mismatching of personalized sheets in any one of the booklets. In addition to the above advantages, my invention provides a method of producing a personalized step-down booklet adaptable to high speed web lithographic printing techniques in which multiple pages can be finished in one operation, thereby resulting in more efficient utilization of equipment and a reduction in overhead associated with the manual handling of the separate sheets that is asociated with prior art methods.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS In the drawings accompanying and forming a part of this specification:

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing a section of the continuous web containing a twelve page step-down booklet of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the web as shown in FIG. 1 with the marginal portions removed after die cutting.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the die cut section of the web as shown in FIG. 2 which has been partially folded.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the finished step-down booklet with consecutive internal pages of progressively increasing width.

Referring to the drawings in detail, wherein like reference characters designate corresponding parts throughout the several figures, and particularly to FIG. 1, there is shown a web of continuous form material 20 with line holes 21 and transverse perforated lines 30. As shown in the drawings the web form contains the repeated impression of a twelve page booklet.

The perforated lines 29 and 30 divide the web 20 into sheets 23, 24, and 25, on which appear pre-printed booklet pages corresponding to l and 12, 6 and 7, and 3 and 10, respectively. Also, pre-printed on the opposite side of sheet 23 are pages 2 and 11, on 24, pages and 8, and on 25, pages 4 and 9. Transverse perforation lines 29, dividing web into sections comprising the sheets of each booklet, are substantially weaker than the perforated lines 30 in order that a longitudinal force applied to separate, or burst, the sections from the web will not separate adjacent sheets along lines 30. The slit-type of perforation is well suited to provide a weakened parting line at 29.

As will be made apparent the layout of the printed matter constituting the pages of the booklet will depend on the manner in which the form is folded and the number and order of the pages for which a computer directed printed personalization is desired. In addition to the overlapping type of fold shown in the figures an accordion type of fold can be used to align the sheets in an overlying configuration. It is also possible to produce booklets having a greater number of pages by in creasing the number of sheets on the pre-printed web. The use of hot-melt glue or other types of glue that are most practically applied in a continuous line on only one side of the passing web can most readily be used on booklets comprised of not more than three sheets, or twelve pages, since appropriate format for printing and folding this size booklet does not leave a glued surface exposed in the finished booklet.

It is obvious that the configuration or lay-out of the communication on the pre-printed web will be determined by the method in which the web is subsequently folded. It is also apparent that the number of pages which can be personalized is determined by the relation of the direction of the printed matter on the sheets with respect to the direction in which the computer directed printer is aligned. The format shown in FIG. 1 would thus permit personalization on one or more lines of pages 1, 12, 3 and 10 as the web 20 passes a computer directed printer head (not shown).

In FIG. 2 the sheets comprising web form 20 have been die out along the margins of the booklet pages parallel to the longitudinal edges of the web and between the transverse perforation lines.

It is essential that the transverse perforation lines 29 be of such a character as to result in a sufficiently weakened parting line between the respective sections of the web 20, comprising the sheets of each booklet, in order that they may be freely separated from each other without tearing or shredding of the sheet material. In addition, those portions of the transverse perforated lines 29 and 30 which are adjacent a section of longitudinal marginal web material that is to be removed can be die cut to facilitate this separation. It is also important that the marginal die cutting of the pages intersect the transverse lines of perforations, or die cuts, but without going beyond that portion of the sheet which will trimmed off the head and foot of the booklet, to avoid spoiling pages on adjacent sheets which are of greater marginal width. It is important that these lines of die cutting intersect the die cut portion of the transverse perforation lines to insure that the excess web material at the longitudinal edges be burst or removed without tearing the page material or leaving an unfinished edge or corner on the booklet pages.

Following the die cutting step, that portion of each sheet lying along the opposite longitudinal edges of the web and included between the transverse perforation lines and the margins is removed. As shown booklet pages 1, l0 and 12 are of uniform size, and pages 3, 6 and 7 are of non-uniform width, increasing with each consecutive page.

FIG. 3 shows the sheets 23, 24 and 25 separated from the web 20 along line 29 and partially folded along lines 30 into what will be the superposed configuration. Binding of the booklet shown in this embodiment may be accomplished by application of paste or hot melt glue along the center line 26 on the reverse side of the web as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4. Application of the glue or paste will be immediately prior to the folding operation. By folding the sheets as shown in FIG. 3, the glued or pasted center line on sheet 25 comes into contact with that of sheet 24, and the glued center line of sheet 23 aligns with the unpasted center line of sheet 24. Other conventional binding means such as wire staples could be employed in the event that the size or format of the booklet is not suitable for a paste type of binding. In this event, binding would be most advantageously accomplished following completion of the folding operation as shown in FIG. 3.

FIG. 4 shows the completed stepdown booklet which has been bound and folded along center line 26 and which has been slit open along the perforation lines 30 that had previously joined the feet of sheets 23 and 24, and the heads of sheets 24 and 25, respectively. Alternatively, the bound sheets may be separated by trimming the head and foot of the booklet to remove portions containing the perforations.

While only the single specific embodiment of the twelve page booklet of the invention has been illustrated, as will become obvious to one skilled in the art, the total number of pages in the booklet, as well as the number and positioning of the step-down pages can be varied within the scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. The method of making a step-down booklet from a pre-printed web which comprises a. perforating said web along transverse lines corresponding to the head and foot of the sheets comprising the booklet pages,

b. die cutting the sheets inside of and parallel to the opposite longitudinal edges of the web between the transverse perforations along lines corresponding to the margins of the booklet pages, where the internal booklet pages are of a non-uniform width,

0. removing those marginal portions of each sheet at the longitudinal edges of the web which are defined by the die cut lines along the opposite margins of the pages comprising the sheets, and the transverse perforation lines,

d. folding said sheets along said perforated lines to a superposed configuration whereby said sheet comprising the adjacent centerfold pages are the opposingly outward facing sheets,

e. binding the superposed sheets together along a line inside of and parallel to the longitudinal margins of said sheets to form a booklet backbone,

f. folding the superposed sheets along the bound backbone whereby the adjacent centerfold pages are placed in an adjacent overlying configuration, and

g. separating the bound sheets along the perforated lines at the head and foot of the booklet.

2. The method of claim 1 where the sheets are bound by hot melt glue applied to said sheets prior to folding said sheets to the superposed position.

3.The method of claim 1 in which the pre-printed web is of indeterminate length and which includes the additional step of separating the die-cut sheets comprising a single booklet from the web along the intermediate transverse perforation line prior to the folding of the sheets to a superposed configuration. 

1. The method of making a step-down booklet from a pre-printed web which comprises a. perforating said web along transverse lines corresponding to the head and foot of the sheets comprising the booklet pages, b. die cutting the sheets inside of and parallel to the opposite longitudinal edges of the web between the transverse perforations along lines corresponding to the margins of the booklet pages, where the internal booklet pages are of a nonuniform width, c. removing those marginal portions of each sheet at the longitudinal edges of the web which are defined by the die cut lines along the opposite margins of the pages comprising the sheets, and the transverse perforation lines, d. folding said sheets along said perforated lines to a superposed configuration whereby said sheet comprising the adjacent centerfold pages are the opposingly outward facing sheets, e. binding the superposed sheets together along a line inside of and parallel to the longitudinal margins of said sheets to form a booklet backbone, f. folding the superposed sheets along the bound backbone whereby the Adjacent centerfold pages are placed in an adjacent overlying configuration, and g. separating the bound sheets along the perforated lines at the head and foot of the booklet.
 2. The method of claim 1 where the sheets are bound by hot melt glue applied to said sheets prior to folding said sheets to the superposed position.
 3. The method of claim 1 in which the pre-printed web is of indeterminate length and which includes the additional step of separating the die-cut sheets comprising a single booklet from the web along the intermediate transverse perforation line prior to the folding of the sheets to a superposed configuration. 